sensibly. So, Jotham, I am told you have sold your betterments to a new settler, and have moved into the village and opened a school. Was it cash or dicker ?"

The man who was thus addressed occupied a seat immediately behind Marmaduke; and one, who was ignorant of the extent of the Judge's observation, might have thought he would have escaped notice. He was of a thin, shapeless figure, with a discontented expression of countenance, and with something extremely shiftless in his whole air. Thus spoken to, after turning and twisting a little, by way of preparation, he made a reply.

"Why, part cash, and part dicker. I sold out to a Pumfret-man, who was so'thin forehanded. He was to give me ten dollars an acre for the clearin, and one dollar an acre over the first cost, on the wood-land; and we agreed to leave the buildins to men. So I tuck Asa Mountagu, and he tuck Absalom Bement, and they two tuck old Squire Naphtali Green. And so they had a meetin, and made out a vardict of eighty dollars for the buildins. There was twelve acres of clearin, at ten dollars, and eighty-eight at one, and the whull came to jist two hundred and eighty-six dollars and a half, after paying the men."

"Hum," said Marmaduke: "what did you give for the place?"

"Why, besides what's comin to the Judge, I gi'n my brother Tim a hundred dollars for his bargain; but then there's a new house on't, that cost me sixty more, and I paid Moses a hundred dollars, for choppin, and loggin, and sowin; so that the whull stood me in about two hundred and sixty dollars. But then I had a great crop off on't, and as I got jist twenty-six dollars and a half more than it cost, I conclude I made a pretty good trade on't."

"Yes, but you forgot that the crop was yours without the trade, and you have turned yourself out of doors for twenty-six dollars."

"Oh! the Judge is clean out," said the man, with a look of sagacious calculation; "he turned out a span of horses, that is wuth a hundred and fifty dollars of any man's money, with a bran new wagon; fifty dollars in cash; and a good note for eighty more; and a side saddle that was valood at seven and a half-so there was jist twelve shillings betwixt us. I wanted him to turn out a set of harness, and take the cow and the sap-troughs. He wouldn't-but I saw through it; he thought I should have to buy the tacklin afore I could use the wagon and horses; but I know'd a thing or two myself; I should like to know of what use is the tacklin to him! I offered him to trade back ag'in, for one hundred and fifty-five. But my woman said she wanted a churn, so I tuck a churn for the change."

"And what do you mean to do with your time this winter? you must remember that time is money."

"Why, as the master is gone down country, to see his mother, who, they say, is going to make a die on't, I agreed to take the school in hand, till he comes back. If times doosn't get wuss in the spring, I've some notion of going into trade, or maybe I may move off to the Genessee; they say they are carryin on a great stroke of business thata-way. If the wust comes to the wust, I can but work at my trade, for I was brought up in a shoe manufactory."

It would seem, that Marmaduke did not think his society of sufficient value, to attempt inducing him to remain where he was; for he addressed no further discourse to the man, but turned his atten

tion to other subjects.-After a short pause, Hiram ventured a question :--

"What news does the Judge bring us from the legislater? it's not likely that congress has done much this session; or maybe the French haven't fit any more battles lately?"

seems

"The French, since they have beheaded their king, have done nothing but fight," returned the judge." The character of the nation changed. I knew many French gentlemen, during our war, and they all appeared to me to be men of great humanity and goodness of heart; but these Jacobins are as blood-thirsty as bull-dogs."

"There was one Roshambow wid us, down at Yorrek-town," cried the landlady; "a mighty pratty man he was, too; and their horse was the very same. It was there that the Sargeant got the hurt in the leg, from the English batteries, bad luck to 'em."

"Ah! mon pauvre Roi !" murmured Monsieur Le Quoi.

"The legislature have been passing laws," continued Marmaduke, "that the country much required. Among others, there is an act, prohibiting the drawing of seines, at any other than proper seasons, in certain of our streams and small lakes; and another, to prohibit the killing of deer in the teeming months. These are laws that were loudly called for, by judicious men; nor do I despair of getting an act, to make the unlawful felling of timber a criminal offence."

The hunter listened to this detail with breathless attention, and when the Judge had ended, he laughed in open derision for a moment, before he made this reply :—

-

"You may make your laws, Judge, but who will you find to watch the mountains through the

long summer days, or the lakes at night? Game is game, and he who finds may kill; that has been the law in these mountains for forty years, to my sartain knowledge; and I think one old law is worth two new ones. None but a green-one would wish to kill a doe with a fa'n by its side, unless his moccasins was gettin old, or his leggins ragged, for the flesh is lean and coarse. But a rifle rings among them rocks along the lake shore, sometimes, as if fifty pieces were fired at once :— it would be hard to tell where the man stood who pulled the trigger."

"Armed with the dignity of the law, Mr. Bumppo," returned the Judge, gravely, "a vigilant magistrate can prevent much of the evil that has hitherto prevailed, and which is already rendering the game scarce. I hope to live to see the day, when a man's rights in his game shall be as much respected as his title to his farm."

"Your titles and your farms are all new together," cried Natty; "but laws should be equal, and not more for one than another. I shot a deer, last Wednesday was a fortnight, and it floundered through the snow-banks till it got over a brush fence; I catch'd the lock of my rifle in the twigs, in following, and was kept back, until finally the creater got off. Now I want to know who is to pay me for that deer; and a fine buck it was. there hadn't been a fence, I should have gotten another shot into it; and I never draw'd upon any thing that hadn't wings three times running, in my born days. No, no, Judge, it's the farmers that makes the game scearce, and not the hunters."

If

"Ter teer is not so plenty as in ter old war, Pumppo," said the Major, who had been an attentive listener, amidst clouds of smoke; "put ter lant

is not mate as for ter teer to live on, put for Christians."

"Why, Major, I believe you're a friend to justice and the right, though you go so often to the grand house; but it's a hard case to a man, to have his honest calling for a livelihood stopt by sitch laws, and that too when, if right was done, he mought hunt or fish on any day in the week, or on the best flat in the Patent, if he was so minded."

"I unterstant you, Letter-stockint," returned the Major, fixing his black eyes, with a look of peculiar meaning, on the hunter; "put you tidn't use to be so prutent, as to look ahet mit so much care."

"Maybe there wasn't so much 'casion," said the hunter, a little sulkily; when he sunk into a profound silence, from which he was not roused for some time.

"The Judge was saying so'thin about the French," Hiram observed, when the pause in the conversation had continued a decent time.

"Yes, sir," returned Marmaduke, "the Jacobins of France seem rushing from one act of licentiousness to another. They continue those murders, which are dignified by the name of executions. You have heard, that they have added the death of their Queen to the long list of their crimes."

"Les Bêtes!" again murmured Monsieur Le Quoi, turning himself suddenly in his chair, with a convulsive start.

"The province of La Vendée is laid waste by the troops of the republic, and hundreds of its inhabitants, who are royalists in their sentiments, are shot at a time.-La Vendée is a district in the southwest of France, that continues yet much attached to the. family of the Bourbons; doubtless